


Five Times Chekov saved McCoy, and the one time McCoy saved Chekov.

by kribban



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Chekov is kinda dark here, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, McChekov is Endgame, Minor Character Death, happy ending (kinda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:53:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24340873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kribban/pseuds/kribban
Summary: From the start, Pasha has had Leonard's back.
Relationships: Pavel Chekov/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	Five Times Chekov saved McCoy, and the one time McCoy saved Chekov.

1.

Leonard McCoy hated almost everything about away missions. 

He hated watching the other members of the team getting hurt by natives or by local flora and fauna. He hated being away from the clean and orderly Sickbay, and from his own, blissfully quiet, quarters. That there was never anything decent to drink seemed almost petty in comparison.

His colleagues happily guzzled down the thick, purple concoction that their hosts had offered them, and Leonard was disgusted by the mere sight of it.

”Doctor?” Ensign Chekov seemed to appear out of nowhere and carefully placed a glass in front of Leonard. The glass was filled with an amber liquid that looked and smelled awfully familiar. 

”Where did you get this?”

”It is synthehol,” Chekov said apologetically. ”The database had no frame of reference for the flavors I asked for, so I had to input the molecular structure from memory. I hope I got it right.”

Leonard didn't even know the molecular structure of whiskey, and he couldn't imagine ever memorizing it. He took a sip. It was passable – no worse than what the synthesizers on the Enterprise would spit out when asked. 

”I really appreciate it, kid. Thanks.”

Chekov shrugged with the hands in his uniform pockets and looked a little embarrassed. 

2.

Leonard was trying to win the fight the way he always did; by avoiding it. The other guy – Williams, Wilkins, or something like that – had been crowding him for the last five minutes yelling at him about Starfleet something, something. Leonard knew it had been a mistake to not change out of his uniform. And it was a damn shame. He'd been so glad to be back on Earth up until this point.

”Listen, I don't know what your problem is, but –”

His left eye exploded, or at least it seemed like it did. Leonard stumbled back. A hand gripped his collar and he braced himself for the next punch. At least he was only two blocks away from Starfleet Medical.

Something hard connected with bone. There was a surprised grunt, followed by a crash and Leonard staggered backward, suddenly free.

Two strong hands gripped his shoulders and he could recognize the smell of that aftershave anywhere.

”Thanks, Lieutenant. I owe you one.” 

He opened his eyes to find Chekov looking concerned and worried. His grip on Leonard loosened a little, but he didn't let him go. ”We need to get you to a hospital, Doctor.”

Leonard should have said he could sort out a black eye on his own, that Chekov's knuckles were going to bruise just as badly as his eye would; but he found that he didn't want to. 

”Probably a good idea, kid. Lead the way?”

”I am not kid,” Chekov muttered and put Leonard's arm around his shoulders as though Leonard couldn't walk on his own. ”Did you pay for your drink?”

Leonard murmured something in the affirmative, and they stepped around the man groaning softly on the floor. By the looks of it, he would be fine, too.

3.

Pasha hooked his arm and leg around Leonard as though trying to pull him as close as was possible. 

”If someone hasn't told you already, you are great at fucking, Leo. This was some of the best I've had.”

Leonard buried his face in the pillow and let his hand rest on the small of Pasha's back. Being cocooned like this would get too warm in a few minutes, but for now it was... nice. Come was cooling on his stomach, and there was more of it, much more, and a healthy dose of lubricant, beginning to drip down Pasha's thigh. It was getting a bit too messy for Leonard's taste. 

”We should shower.”

”In a bit,” Pasha said happily and kissed Leonard on the nose. ”I'm going to dream about this until the next time you agree to fuck me.” His expression suddenly darkened, a clear sign that Leonard had winced, even though he'd tried very hard not to. 

”This is not going to happen again, is it? I'm sorry I presumed too much, I –” He had gone very still and from his body language, it was obvious he was a second or two from moving away.

Leonard groaned loudly and reached down to squeeze one of Pasha's asscheeks, effectively keeping him in place. ”It is damn well going to happen again. And soon. Now quit worrying, or you'll spoil the mood.” 

Pasha instantly relaxed and proceeded to nibble Leonard's jaw for a few seconds. It was cute, but Leonard had the feeling it would be overbearingly cute in a few months or so. 

”Then why did you frown, Leo? Was it something I said?”

It was a goddamn shame Leonard was so easy to read. That's why he'd never made a very good Poker player. ”I wish you hadn't called it that.”

”Fucking? You are not usually one to mince words, Leo. I have heard you curse more times than I can count.”

”I'm old-fashioned about some things. Can't exactly be news to you, considering I'm well on my way to being an old man.”

”It is just a word, Leo. A word that accurately describes the activity in question. There is nothing loaded about it.” Pasha lifted his head to frown down at Leonard. ”You are actually serious.” 

Leonard wanted to sink through the floor. ”You can use whatever words you like. Just ignore the ramblings of an old fart.” 

But Pasha was like a dog with a bone, never one to let something go once he'd caught the scent of blood.

”You don't fuck, you... have sex? Sleep with? Penetrate?” His eyes widened and he looked at Leonard expectantly. ”Make love?”

Leonard wanted to sink through the mattress and disappear. Pasha's face broke out into a fond smile, the kind you gave little children or very, very old people. 

”Oh, you are such a prude, Leo!” He laughed. ”It is a bit silly, but very sweet as well.” He lay his head back down and sighed happily. ”All right, I will concede on the matter to make you happy.”

They lay in comfortable silence for a while, until Pasha made a comment that he could feel Leonard's love seeping out of his ass, and they finally took that shower. 

4.

Leonard hated the shuttles a little less than he hated transporters. It took longer to get to your destination hurtling through space in a tin can, but the coping mechanisms he'd developed over the years were a lot more effective against that, than against the unnatural horror of the transporter. If they crashed and burned, at least there would be a body to bury. 

But this ride was rough enough to almost make him re-evaluate. The straps were digging into his shoulders and his stomach threatened to turn itself inside out with every shake. He wanted to put his head between his knees, but the harness he was secured in made such movement impossible. He settled for staring at the floor, in the hopes that everything would stop moving if he kept his head still. 

A pair of black boots appeared in his field of vision, and he looked up incredulously. ”What are you doing? Do you want to crack your head open?!”

”Don't be ridiculous. It is just a bit of turbulence,” Pasha replied calmly and used the bulkhead to steady himself while making his way over to where Leonard was sitting. As soon as he was within grabbing distance, Leonard took hold of Pasha's arm and didn't let go until Pasha was strapped in next to him. 

”Have you completely lost your mind?” Leonard's heart was pounding so hard his chest was going to be sore for days. He couldn't stand any more tension and the mission hadn't even started! ”You're disobeying orders!”

”Don't be so dramatic, Leo. It was the mission commander's idea.” Pasha finished adjusting the straps of his harness and took Leonard's hand. ”He said you will be no use to us on the surface if you've suffered a nervous breakdown on the flight down.”

The shuttle shook violently once more and Leonard found himself squeezing Pasha's hand so hard it was probably uncomfortable. He had made himself dependent, once again, and he hated it just a little bit, but not enough to drown out his overwhelming gratitude. 

A few minutes later the shaking had ceased and the lush green surface of the planet could be glimpsed through the small window. Leonard was actually breathing okay, and he hadn't thrown up yet.

”How are you lovebirds doing back there?” Lt. Commander Riley's voice came through on the PA, full of mirth and smug enjoyment. ”Enjoying your honeymoon, so far?” 

”I can't believe Kevin of all people was promoted before you were,” Leonard growled but his husband just shrugged in response.

5.

There was a hearing. 

Leonard went first and he answered the questions as straightforwardly as he could. 

He had tried to stabilize the patient. Yes, he had sent his nurses out. Yes, he had tried to erect a level six force field around sickbay before sticking his hands in the chest cavity of a patient that had a tricobalt device wired to his neural pathways. 

There hadn't been enough power to sustain the forcefield but Leonard had proceeded with the operation under the assumption that the patient would not kill the physician trying to save his life. 

He still stood by that assessment. 

They dismissed him with as little show of emotion as was possible, and he went. 

First, to Sickbay that was still intact and not blown up along with a large chunk of subspace, and then he went home. 

He poured himself a drink. There was nothing he wanted to listen to so he sat in silence and waited. 

Pasha came home two hours later, looking impeccable and handsome in his dress uniform. Leonard had already taken his off and it was in a heap on the floor by the bed.

”When will you know?” 

”The result of the inquiry will be revealed in a few days, but Commander Spock says he is sure I will receive a commendation.” Pasha said quietly and began to take the uniform off. He hung it carefully in the back of the closet, where it would remain pressed and untouched until the next time he would need it. 

He put on a pair of gray sweatpants and an Academy tee, which made him look a lot like the man Leonard had once married. 

”Have you eaten?” 

”No,” Leonard replied. ”I'm not hungry.”

Pasha nodded, although it was clear he was unhappy with the response. He stuck his hands into his pockets, looking just as awkward as all those years ago. ”I want you to sleep in the bed tonight, Leo.” 

He did, did he?

Leonard didn't think he would sleep in that bed ever again.

He got up and poured himself another drink. He'd never really broken the bad habit of drinking too much; just replaced it with even worse ones. Temporarily, it seemed. 

”Yeah, it's gonna take a little more time for me to forgive you, Lieutenant.”

Pasha turned his head to look at him and there was something unsettling about his gaze. ”There is nothing to forgive, Leo,” he said tiredly.

Pasha did receive a commendation, applause all around, and a few drink offers, but everyone was smart enough not to congratulate Leonard even though it was common knowledge they were married.

Jim pulled him into his office and gave him a stern talking to. Well, he tried to, but in the end, it was he who got emotional.

”If it had been I,” he pleaded, ”Would you have been angry with me?”

”Probably,” Bones admitted, ”I'm a doctor. I save lives.”

”That's just it; you're a doctor. You're not in operations or command.” Jim shook his head and took a deep breath, a clear sign that he was trying not to lose his temper. ”Safeguarding the ship is the number one priority for any officer or enlisted crew. Anyone would have done what Pavel did, Bones. You have to understand that,”

It was clear what Jim was saying; even though Bones had graduated from the Academy, he wasn't really in the same category as Scotty or Sulu. Or Pasha. Leonard had never resented that implication before.

”Blown my patient's brains out in front of me? A man who was too busy bleeding out to do anything stupid?”

”A man who could blow the ship up with his mind?” Jim asked softly. ”Yes, Bones. I would have.”

They'd been friends for what seemed like forever, but there were depths to Jim that even Leonard hadn't glimpsed and that he didn't want to. He ran a hand over his face and wanted to say how he'd been right, that two decades of practicing medicine had taught him how to read people, but Jim wasn't the person he wanted to say those things to.

Jim sighed and inched closer like he was preparing to give Leonard a hug. ”This is one of the good things you've got going, Bones. I don't want you to ruin it over something....” He straightened up, becoming a little more regal in his posture. ”Something as cut-and-dry as this.”

It was past twenty-two hundred hours when Leonard found his husband on the Observation deck, gazing out through the forcefield with a cup in his hands. Leonard could smell the bitter tea that Pasha often drank in the evenings without as much as a hint of honey to sweeten it. It was disgusting.

”I thought you'd be getting drunk in the Rec Room right about now.”

”I did not feel like drinking or socializing.” Pasha replied. He had looked up when Leonard had entered, but now he turned his gaze forward again. ”This is why I joined Starfleet.” He indicated the stars in front of him. ”I didn't sign up for the chance to exert violence in socially sanctioned ways. If you are thinking along those lines, you can cease now.”

Leonard let out a snort. ”You seemed awfully comfortable with it.” 

”I took the action that was necessary to save the life of dozens of people, including you. It is quite possible that the majority of the crew would have survived in sections sealed off from the explosion by emergency forcefields, but it's not possible that you would have.”

The words came out as precisely and surely as though Pasha had said them dozens of times before, and he probably had. In his own head, at the hearing, in his written report. 

”I should be grateful, huh?” Leonard spat out and tried to ward off the memories. The adrenaline of treating a patient. The splatter of brains on his tunic. The cold determination in the eyes of the man he thought he knew.

”Do you want a divorce?” Pasha suddenly asked and the air in Leonard's lungs came out all at once.

He sank down on the bench as though he'd been standing up for days. He managed to shake his head. ”What I want to know is why on Earth you didn't trust my judgment.”

”I trust you with my life, Leo, but I don't trust you with yours. And I have my duty,” Pasha added as though it was an afterthought. ”In some situations, the qualities that I admire the most in you are a liability. It might seem right to you to risk the lives of dozens to save one if you perceive the risk to be small, but it isn't.” 

That was some pure Handbook-bullshit, but the scary thing was how sincere Pasha seemed. At least with Jim, Leonard had the choice to look away. 

”God, you were such a sweet kid,” he muttered and turned his head to stare into the swirling vortex of the warp stream.

He didn't want a divorce, but he didn't want to continue hurting Pasha either. Pasha asked him if he did and Leonard took that as an invitation to simply stop talking. 

He stowed his crap. That was something he'd always excelled at and he fell back into the habit easily. He slept on the couch. He tried not to drink so much.

Sickbay still functioned, and the Enterprise was still a whole ship; fully staffed with healthy, living people whose continued existence was an exchange in an argument that was still going on in Leonard's head. 

One day, Ensign Reyes came in with blunt cardiac injury and Leonard saved him through a surgery he'd only performed once before and that most doctors never did.

”I don't want to have sex,” he said that night.

Pasha looked up from his PADD where he lay on his side on the bed, eyes widening and cautious hope written all over his face. He shook his head.

”I just want to hold you,” he said softly and welcomed Leonard back under the covers where he'd once belonged. 

Pasha's arms around him felt the same as before and he smelled just the same, too. 

”I don't think you understand how much I love you, Leo,” he whispered, already on the verge of falling asleep. 

For the first time, Leonard probably did. 

1.

Leonard didn't understand the Russian language, but he knew from the agitation in his husband's voice that things were really bad.

They were luckily enough parked at Starbase Five so the subspace connection was pretty good, but they were still weeks away from Earth on commercial transport; if that had been a possibility, and it wasn't.

The job came first, above all other concerns, even family. Pasha had never had a problem with that before, but then again, things had never been quite this critical. 

”What's the matter?” Leonard asked softly and moved in to stand closer, almost touching.

”They're going to take him away,” Pasha cried out, voice almost breaking. ”Father doesn't want to die in a hospital, he –” He gulped loudly as tears spilled down his cheeks. 

”Does she speak English?” Leonard asked softly and when Pasha nodded he held out his hand for the comm unit.

”This is Doctor McCoy, Chief Medical Officer on the USS Enterprise. To whom am I speaking?”

The voice at the other end was startled, but she introduced herself as Andrei Chekov's caregiver.

”Now what seems to be the problem?”

Leonard reached out to place his hand on Pasha's shoulder while he listened to how Andrei had developed a fever yet again and how he was drifting in and out of consciousness.

”The patient has terminal cancer. Moving him at this stage will be traumatic for him, and then he'll die alone in the ER instead of at his home where he's familiar with the surroundings. Do you really want to inflict this kind of torture on the patient?” 

”No, of course not,” the woman said helplessly over the line. She sounded incredibly young. ”I just want him to get better.”

”He won't get better,” Leonard said curtly. ”He is going to die. You can either make his last few days peaceful, or you can force an innocent man to suffer.”

”I see,” the woman said after a few moments, sounding shaken. Leonard instructed her on how to call for a doctor to come and administer pain relief and then he told her to let Pasha talk to his father.

It wasn't clear how much Andrei actually heard, but Pasha spoke softly and urgently. Leonard didn't understand a word of it, but he imagined it was things a son would say to his beloved father the last time they ever spoke. 

The conversation lasted only a minute. It was often the case with terminal patients that their attention span didn't last very long. Leonard pulled his husband into his arms and let him cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Though not part of TOS canon, one theory is that McCoy is not a member of Starfleet. In the AOS he obviously is, but I think this story works any way.


End file.
